Continued from
One moment there is a stretch of ordinary burrow under the city. What's supposed to be an pit trap and packed earth walls. The next, the air halfway down the passageway tears apart. The edges of the tear fold back on themselves. Loose soil lifts off the tunnel floor and hangs in the air and then evaporates like morning dew.
Then the pull starts. It is quiet, and very strong. Something is being pulled through. Something from the Other side.
Oops.
"There's a mayor? Sure."
Whee! Time to see what the dream offers her next.
(...This is a pretty stable dream, though...)
After walking across eight corridors, down and up several stairs, and going through several round doors, they arrive at the lab.
The lab is round, low-domed chambers dug off a central hall. The walls are packed earth reinforced with various junk- car doors, corrugated roofing, and various bits of wood.
All over the lab are robot badgers in various states of completion, on straw-lined charging pads, cables running into their sides. A whiteboard in the corner says OPERATION: ANNOY THE MAYOR.
She feels vaguely In Trouble, and the creeping feeling of wrongness is getting stronger but lets it wash over her.
"Hi, Dr. E. What'd the mayor do that deserves annoyance?"
"Well, just recently he held a press conference about the traffic cones we put in his back yard. And at the end he looked into the camera and said, 'This city will not be badgered. As if it were a bad thing. But he's been bad-mouthing the badgers for years!"
"Oh, that is a burn."
Is this even a dream? She doesn't remember deciding it was. It started by sticking her through a Rift, and then that looney tunes chase scene...
...Hmm. She goes quiet as she focuses and feels out for older traces of her own magic. If it's a dream, she'll feel fuzzy random things. If not, she'll feel ... nothing?
Ah, this probably, isn't a dream? Which makes the whole thing much more concerning.
"Splendid! All badgers are welcome here! We're thinking of replacing all the paintings in the city hall rotunda with paintings of badgers, you in?"
"...It would be much more interesting than some old white guys, so sure."
And it will give her more information about what is going on.
Eventually they arrive inside the old mansion, and get an unobstructed view of the harbor and the city.
This sure looks like Earth!
She's increasingly less sure it's a dream.
Though she doesn't... Remember Earth very clearly.
And the badger crew seems to think nothing of breaking and entering.
.......Well, she's played along this far, let's keep going.
"I want to get a smartphone later," she remarks, though. "...Maybe a big tablet instead."
"Dr E doesn't make them! The ones she makes keep turning into moles and burrowing away..."
Ah, maybe it is still a dream.
She should be slightly less lackadasical. She tags everyone nearby with her tracker-illusions; Invisible labels with their names. Or, well, 'Dr. E' and 'Edgar' and 'Armor Guy', and 'Robot Badger' for everyone else. Technically they do nothing, because they're invisible, but she can find her own illusions again, so: Trackers.
Can her magic interact with radio...? Prooooobably not unless she actually understands how the signal works. Which she did, once, sort of, but not now.
"Geez, how do you get enough thrust in personal armor to fly without cooking yourself or running out of fuel in two minutes?"
"I taught him antigravity! He copied it from Harriet's anti-gravity claws! That's why we're best buddies now!"
The man in the armor lands on the ground ahead of them.
"I'm not her friend. Dr E, have you made a new badger? What can this one do?"
She knows badgers bark; She barks out a puff of blue fire, so nobody will expect much else. It's a very straightforward power. Makes them not suspect the others.
"That!"
"I didn't make that one! That one came out of a hole in the universe! The name's Weiss! She's our new friend!"
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